


Getting Back in the Game

by Piinutbutter



Category: Silent Hill (Video Game Series)
Genre: Bonding Over Silent Hill Induced Trauma, F/M, First Dates, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2020-12-27 02:28:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21111179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piinutbutter/pseuds/Piinutbutter
Summary: Heather is a healthy, capable young woman who should be able to go out to coffee with someone once in a while and not worry about being attacked by evil murder cults. 'Should' being the operative word, there.





	Getting Back in the Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FireEye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/gifts).

Heather hadn’t dated in a long time. Romance had shot right off the priorities list the moment her life descended into monsters and murder. Even after things had calmed down, and Heather had returned to something bearing superficial resemblance to a mundane life, Heather’s past loomed over her. It was enough to make her keep her distance from other people. She had visions of going out to coffee with someone one day and finding them in a pool of blood the next.

_Like your dad?_ Douglas had asked, when she’d confided in him.

Yeah. Like dad.

But Douglas was still here, safe and sound. And no matter how often Heather looked over her shoulder, nothing overtly sketchy had come her way in a good while. And...and screw it. Heather had managed to kill a god and she wasn’t out of her twenties yet. She deserved a normal-ass love life.

What she deserved and what she could easily obtain turned out to be two different things.

A lack of potential matches wasn’t the issue. Heather was young and - if you asked her - pretty damn good looking, thank you very much. The problem was finding a way to hit it off with someone while, at the same time, safely establishing that they weren’t planning to kidnap, kill, or otherwise maim her. That meant any and all dating apps were out; anyone could lie on those things. Speed dating was a bust, too; not nearly enough time to get past the initial Stranger Danger phase.

So Heather resigned herself to singledom, at least until the universe decided to throw her a bone. Which it eventually did, at - of all places - the run-down old public library.

The library was smack dab in the middle of the commute between Heather’s two comfortably boring part time jobs. She usually had an hour and a half between shifts. Not enough time to go home, but more time than she needed to put food and coffee in her body. So she staked out a beanbag chair in a corner by the Dictionary section and read. A lot.

Heather had always liked books. But her tastes had expanded after everything that had happened in the last couple years. Her usual sci-fi pulp and saccharine magical girl manga were now mixed in with nonfiction about cults, the paranormal, and the history of an unassuming little town called Silent Hill. In fact, Heather was holding a chunky paperback about deprogramming destructive mentalities in ex-cult victims when she finally decided to go for it and talk to Bird Guy.

Bird Guy didn’t actually look like a bird. He had an average, unassuming appearance; brown-haired, scruffy, a little on the short side. Heather had taken to thinking of him as Bird Guy because: A. She didn’t know his real name, B. His usual reading spot was right under an abstract mural of tropical birds.

His schedule must have had a hell of a lot of overlap with Heather’s. She knew his routine by now. He was there Tuesdays and Wednesdays like clockwork. Fridays were sporadic, but he still came more often than not. Sundays, he never showed up. And Heather didn’t go to the library on the other three days.

Some would call her creepy. Heather preferred “justifiably vigilant.”

Really, the only reason Heather had taken notice of him at first was the regularity of his showing up whenever she did. It was enough to set off her _keep an eye out_ senses. But it didn’t take long for Heather to decide the guy was just minding his own business. She and Bird Guy had exchanged only the smallest of small talk. Nothing more in-depth than _excuse me, do you know where the recycling bin is?_ and _can you believe they still haven’t turned the heat on in this place?_ But every time Heather brushed past him in the narrow aisles of the stacks, or when their eyes met during one of those awkward “we’re both staring blankly into space and happened to be looking right at another person” moments, Heather got a sense of kindness from him. A nonthreatening vibe. An aura of definitely-not-an-evil-cult-weirdo.

It wasn’t lost on Heather that her standards, while unusually specific, were in reality painfully low. Silent Hill would do that to a gal.

If nothing else, the guy was cute and Heather didn’t have much to lose by making a go for it. So she waited until Bird Guy paused to stretch his shoulders and approached him, peeking at the book he was reading today.

“Oh man,” Heather said, careful to keep her voice library-safe. “_The Untold Sky?_ I’ve been meaning to read that forever. How is it so far?”

“O-oh,” Bird Guy said, closing and opening the book in his hands. “It’s good? Um. Yeah, it’s good. A lot of good dialogue...and stuff.”

Okay, so maybe he was a little shy. But Heather knew plain old social awkwardness when she saw it. No secret murder plans he was reluctant to reveal. Probably.

Heather gave him a smile, rooting around in her pocket for something. “That’s great! Say, would you mind letting me know when you’re done with it? Just shoot me a text.”

Bird Guy blinked at the piece of paper held out to him. “Oh! I mean. I could. But I think they can...” He began to point at the front desk, no doubt ready to tell Heather about the library’s own availability notification program. Then he took a second look at Heather’s offered phone number, and a third look at Heather’s face, which was now winking in encouragement.

“Um, should I-” He took the paper from Heather’s hand, giving her a surprised little smile that was cute in all its awkwardness.

Heather nodded. “Like I said, just shoot me a text. If you want to, of course.” She left him with a wave and a, “My name’s Heather,” spoken over her shoulder.

No last name on the first meeting. She wasn’t that reckless yet.

Heather’s evening shift was long and quiet. She wasn’t supposed to have her phone out at work, but no one was around to care if she checked the notifications every once in a while. Nothing besides promotional emails she’d been too lazy to unsubscribe to.

The night stretched out just long enough for Heather to start worrying. Maybe Bird Guy was already taken, or maybe he didn’t like girls, or maybe he wasn’t a cult member but he _was_ your average run-of-the-mill serial killer and he was planning how best to lure Heather to somewhere isolated. It was always the quiet ones, right?

When a text from an unfamiliar number finally came through, she took a bogus bathroom break to read the message over carefully.

_Hey. Is this Heather? My name’s Henry Townshend. It was really nice to meet you._

A minute later, another text came through.

_BTW, did you really want me to let you know when I’m done with the book? Because I kind of finished it five minutes ago. I can give it to you this weekend. I know you’re there on Tuesdays._

And a hasty addition.

_Wait. That sounded creepy. Sorry. I just noticed, because we sit basically right across from each other..._

_I’m making it worse, aren’t I?_

Heather leaned on the sink and smiled at her phone. She had a good feeling about this one.

* * *

Their first date was not in a sketchy, isolated part of town in the dead of night. It was as simple as walking to the coffee shop across the street from the library they’d both spent so much time in. Henry surprised her by ordering the most sugar-laden drink possible. He noticed her staring at the extra whipped cream as they sat down, and shrugged, a hint of embarrassed color in his cheeks.

“I used to drink black coffee. Because that’s, you know, what adults are supposed to do. Then, um, I learned that life is too short to drink something I don’t even like.”

Heather was more of a chai latte girl herself, but she smiled and shook her head. “I’m just thinking about how tasty it looks.”

Henry wasn’t a big talker, but he was a great listener. They started out talking about the weather, because Heather had woken up this morning with an irrational fear that any words of substance that came out of her mouth would spiral into _hey, wanna hear about how I’m the reincarnation of a tortured little girl who’s supposed to pop an evil god out of my uterus?_ But Henry was chill, and it was easy to have - holy shit - a normal conversation for once.

Their conversation was so normal, in fact, that it took a good half a minute for Heather to notice the world crumbling around her.

There was no warning siren. No sudden jolt in the fabric of the universe. Just a gradual fading and warping of the bustling coffee shop around her, until the only things left were her and Henry, sitting in a cold, sterile facsimile of the restaurant.

It had been sunny outside all day. Now, fog rolled in.

Heather was too busy feeling her stomach drop through the floor to hear Henry’s barely-audible whisper of, “Shit. Not again.”

She had a problem, here. Well, several problems really. But the important one was sitting in front of her, clutching his watered-down drink with shaking fingers. Heather didn’t want to deal with this bullshit again, but at least she had experience with it. She could handle herself. Henry - why was he still here? All the other civilians had vanished. This twisted reality was barred to them. So how had Henry remained?

With a pang of guilt that was tangible enough to itch in her throat, Heather realized that their connection might have dragged him along by accident. She’d brought a plus one to the world’s worst party.

Her mind raced. Would Henry even perceive the world the same way she did? If - or, if she was being real with herself, _when_ \- they ran into something horrific, what would Henry see?

Vincent’s words liked to dance through her head, waking Heather in the middle of the night like a shitty ringtone. _They look like monsters to you? They look like monsters to you? They look like monsters to you?_

Heather sighed and stood up. No matter what happened, just sitting here would get them nowhere. But when she made a move to leave the table, Henry’s hand darted out and grabbed her arm.

“I - ah.” Henry withdrew his hand, embarrassed. “Don’t wander off. Please? I don’t want you to get hurt.”

That cut through Heather’s panicky introspection. She took a good look at Henry’s face; at the worry on it that was layered with sheer exhaustion. That wasn’t the face of someone who didn’t know what the hell was happening to him.

“You’ve been here before,” Heather said, giving up on making it a question halfway through the sentence.

Henry nodded. He looked so damn tired. “You could say that.”

* * *

They ended up taking Heather’s car to her apartment. She had all her weapons and supplies there, and besides, Henry looked ready to pass out at the suggestion of going to his place. She learned why on the drive.

Henry - quiet, shy Henry - spilled his guts in one traumatic storytime. His explanation was stilted at first, but as soon as Heather assured him that she knew he wasn’t crazy, it was like she’d opened a dam. Heather got it, she really did. You couldn’t talk about this shit with just anyone, even though it was such a big part of your life; even though it felt like it was shaping your every move and thought. Heather had done her best to go back to living like a normal-ass person, but it was never going to happen.

In return, Heather gave her companion an abbreviated version of her own damage. He didn’t need to know all the gory details just yet. Not that Heather didn’t trust him. She just...wasn’t ready.

Besides. Those weren’t first date conversation topics.

They made it to Heather’s apartment without incident, which was frankly a miracle. The fog was there, and other humans weren’t, but no monsters lumbered out of the mist to accost them. At least, they held off long enough for Heather to dig out the trusty box in the back of her coat closet.

“Take your pick,” Heather said, pulling a blade from the top of the pile. “Except this one. This one’s mine.”

Henry stared in open admiration. “Is that a katana?”

“Hell yeah it is.”

Henry looked down at the array of bludgeoning implements, bit his lip, and grabbed an axe that Heather knew was heavier than it looked.

She approved.

* * *

There was a kind of assholish - but totally sound - logic in the fact that they ended up at the library. Where all hell had broken loose.

Nothing that the two of them hadn’t seen before. That didn’t make it any less viscerally uncomfy to hack the heads off of towering fleshy beasts or stomp squirming, wailing insects under their feet. Heather had to admit, though: It was nice to have backup. Some of the otherworld’s bite was dulled by the knowledge that there was someone she could trust going through this same nonsense by her side.

In the quiet moments treading hallways covered in breathing muscle tissue, they talked. What had brought this on? Neither she nor Henry had been experiencing any Silent Hill-shaped warning signs before their date. It seemed unlikely that the ghosts from either of their pasts had chosen this exact moment to come back and haunt them. And then Henry made a joke, laughing joylessly and rubbing the back of his neck.

“Maybe having the two of us in one place was just...too much dark energy, or something.”

Heather’s empty smirk and, “yeah, that’s gotta be it,” covered up the fact that she was thinking about how much sense that made.

Something on the wall caught Henry’s eye. He leaned close and narrowed his eyes. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “Do you, um, know much about Shakespeare?”

Heather rolled her eyes as she stepped beside him. “Again? They need to learn some new tricks.”

* * *

There was always a big bad to tackle if you wanted to return to the real world, and today’s impromptu dip into the otherworld was no exception. A giant malformed slimy rat thing had made the library’s basement archives its home. It wound through the narrow, long shelves, trying to disorient them. It succeeded at first, but it was two against one, and with a healthy dose of slicing and chopping, the monster shrieked and faded into a pile of mothballs.

The air lifted around them, a tangible shift in the room’s aura. Panting, Henry stared up at the ceiling lights as they flickered on one at a time.

“We should probably go make sure nowhere else has been affected,” Heather suggested.

Henry nodded, then grimaced. “Can we go out the back door? If there are people up there, I don’t know how to explain, um...” He hefted the gore-covered axe in his hand.

The back door sounded good.

* * *

They drove around for another two hours, but the entire Ashfield region seemed to be well and truly safe from whatever fucked up wormhole had swallowed the coffee shop and the library. The more Heather thought about it, the more Henry’s joking suggestion seemed the likely explanation. Two Silent Hill survivors in one place; of course weird shit was going to happen.

The nasty voice that blamed Heather for everything came nibbling back, suggesting that Henry would never want to see her again after this was over. Why should he? She was just bringing misfortune everywhere she set foot. She should take the initiative and leave him alone, before someone came after him and...

At a red light that seemed to last eons, Henry cleared his throat.

“So, um. Thanks. For today.”

Heather snorted. “For what? This was the worst date ever.”

“It could’ve been worse.”

“How?”

“I could have been dragged back into that place alone. I...don’t think I would’ve handled that well.”

That banked Heather’s waiting sarcastic response. “Oh. I mean, same from me. And it was really nice meeting you. Not just for the, y’know, therapeutic value.”

That had Henry smiling again.

Heather followed his directions to his place. He’d sent several texts while in the car, and when Heather pulled up, a brown-haired woman was waiting for him on the other side of the road. She was clutching a coat around her pajamas, and looked like she’d seen a ghost. Her face lit up when she saw Henry step out of the car.

“My roommate,” Henry explained before closing the car door. “I could introduce you two, sometime? If you want, I mean. I think you guys would be friends.”

“Oh,” Heather said, slightly confused at the implication that Henry didn’t immediately want to cut off all contact with her after today’s fiasco. “Eileen, right?”

“That’s her.” Maybe it was just the chill in the air, but Heather could swear she saw a blush on Henry’s face. “See you tomorrow,” he said, and shut the door in a hurry.

When Heather closed the door to her own bedroom - making sure to turn on all the lights and check all the corners - she had a text waiting for her.

_I made a note that the next date is BYOA._

Heather texted back a simple, _?_

Henry replied: _Bring Your Own Axe._

Heather locked her phone screen and sank into bed with the comforting knowledge that, even if Silent Hill had tried to take yet another good thing from her, it had failed this time.


End file.
